The present invention relates to apparatus for collecting fluid proximate to a body cavity, particularly the vagina, of a human being or other animal and for then treating the collected fluid in a predetermined manner.
Presently known apparatus involve certain disadvantages and inconveniences. For example where a physician feels that a patient may have a certain disease, it is common to take a swab and transmit the specimen removed by the swab to a laboratory for analysis. These procedures are not highly reliable because the removed sample is of a limited magnitude. In connection with normal menstrual flow of healthy female adults, considerable inconveniences are involved in the use of conventional tampons and sanitary napkins inasmuch as items of this type must be frequently changed.
In addition, where the presence or absence of certain diseases are to be determined, with conventional apparatus there is not only a lack of reliability as referred to above but in addition there is an unavoidable and undesirable delay in determining the results.